Wild Country has a series of six videos as well as PDF files on how to climb different sized cracks here. This is the most recent video on how to tape.
Wild Country Crack School - Episode 6 - Taping - By Tom Randall And Pete Whittaker from Wild Country on Vimeo.
In Norway, they converted an abandoned hydro electrical power station into a via ferrata. Looks fun.
I suspected that GriGri was a derivation of the Voodoo word “gris gris".” But I didn’t know “belay” came from Old English and “arete” from Greek.
Three women are hiking the length of South America. They started last October in southern Patagonia and are now in Peru. This is one of the trails they hiked. And one of the rivers they crossed.Their blog is here.
There are 4 climbers in the photo below about to be swallowed up by an avalanche on Annapurna. They all survived by ducking under an overhanging ice cliff. Full story here.
This seems like good advice on caring for your climbing harness – looking for wear spots (as in the photo below) and how to clean it.
An article about Alex Honnold’s recent link-up in Yosemite. The video below is of him climbing on Mt Watkins. Almost all of the 75 pitches were in the 5.10-5.11 range. Below is some rough footage of his climb on Mt. Watkins. It gave me the willies to see him hanging onto a small crimp while reaching for his daisy chain to clip into a bolt.
A quote from an 8 year-old Pakastani boy whose father was a porter killed in the 2008 K2 climbing accident. This quote is from a new book about the accident with a book review here.
A shirt to help you perform better by forcing you to stand up straighter. If this had been around a few years earlier, there would have been no hunchback in that church in France.
We stayed at a campground in the Black Hills which has very high benches. These benches are so high, Ron’s short legs can’t reach the ground when he’s seated. So he got Killer to teach him how to enjoy sitting up so high.
One of these people is a pro climber who knows how to dress – he’s wearing red. The others, don’t know how to dress properly for climbing. See if you can find him.
Here are some photos of Logan and Kyle on the Conn Diagonal in the Black Hills. Quite a climb, boys!
Let’s zoom in to spot them.
Here’s Marianna – The Hammer – doing some bouldering in the Black Hills. She ‘s bold to get so far above the ground.
Oh, wait she’s on the top of the car. She just invented a new sport “Car Top Soloing.”
Here’s Killer getting a spot from Marianna:
For climbers, this might be the best swimming pool I’ve ever seen. It’s at this fancy schmancy resort in southern Utah.
A trailer about canyoneering the Grand Canyon. At the 1:35 second mark, they build a rappel anchor from some loose rocks. Quite amazing.
Last of the Great Unknown - Trailer #1 from Dan Ransom on Vimeo.
Some advice from Dave MacLeod on succeeding when climbs are hard":
“Every hard climb I’ve ever done has felt easy in the moment of success, but hard right up to that point. I’m not looking to do easy climbs easily. I want to do hard climbs easily. Every
hard climb I’ve ever done has felt easy in the moment of success, but hard right up to that point. Therefore since 99% of climbing time is going to feel hard in all the forms that ‘hard’ takes, if you enjoy those things then you get on with the journey to that special moment of easiness quicker.”
I’ve heard the phrase attributed to Isaac Newton that he could see further only because he was “standing on the shoulders of giants.” But I had no idea there was an actual competition each year to do that.
Casteller from Mike Randolph on Vimeo.
You probably have enough liquid already. Here’s another article about the myth of 8 glasses of water a day being important. It persists because there’s a lot of money to be made selling water.
“Yet the myth sticks around, likely because people have made a lot of money off the idea that we're all on the precipice of dehydration.”
I like to climb slabs. But I don’t get much practice. Good tips here on slab climbing. Including these:
Kauk Slab from Beth Rodden on Vimeo.
This is Kyle and Anna’s daughter Olivia at Taylors Falls today. I understand why kids like rock climbing – lots of comfortable rocks to lean against. I think her sleep number is ROCK.
Big turnout today at Taylors. Here’s Killer racking up for a lead climb and Elizabeth I and Elizabeth II talking about who will clean up after her.
One of Kyle’s placements on a lead climb. I just like the photo.
A young woman travels from Ireland to solo climb “Lurking Fear” on El Cap. She’s not experienced at big wall climbing and tells quite a tale of her climb. I liked these quotes:
“I split my loads and carried one to the top, however my brain then shut off completely and I was too scared to scramble back down for the second one. Instead I sat at the very tippy
top of El Cap, chain smoking and thinking about life, …
The next morning was an ibuprofen breakfast kind of morning. My toes had been somehow both numb and hurting so I decided to brave the smell and investigate. Eeek, my toenails and the skin on my big toes had gone kind of black and numb on the surface. Lovely. Found out later it was mild trench-foot from the cold wet night.”
No insult intended, but I watched this time lapse of Jen and Pete setting up anchors at TF today, and thought of this music. Wait for the surprise ending.
Jen, Pete & I climbed at Taylors today and it got hot. So we got down by the river. This was a fun lead that started at the swirling water’s edge.
We went mountain biking at the new Cuyana mine trails this weekend. Great mountain bike trails built on and over mine tailings from long-abandoned iron ore mines. While there, I read about the use of one of these mine pits to test high altitude on humans. This was in 1957. Details here. The pit is over 400 feet deep. Today, it’s filled with water.
